1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved communication device. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for providing interaction among a plurality of communication device users within a queue system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, telephones are one of the most widely-used communication tools in the world. In the early stages of development, telephones were merely a convenient tool to allow people to communicate while physically separated. Currently, however, many organizations use telephones to market products and services, provide technical support to customers, allow customers to access financial data, and much more. Thus, telephone systems have become a widely used major business tool.
Telephone call centers have been developed in order to bring about effective use of telephone systems for business purposes. Typically, a call center has a large number of customer service representatives to handle telephone communication with customers. As telephone access to customer service staff increases, problems associated with waiting on hold also has increased. Problems include, for example, excessively long wait times, full hold queues that cannot accept additional callers, and accidental call disconnects. These types of hold queue problems engender a high level of caller frustration and ill will.
One method used by businesses today to decrease caller frustration is to inform calling customers as to the current estimated wait time before a customer service representative is available to take the call. However, even though the calling party is informed of an extended wait time for a customer service representative to answer the call, the calling party may still choose to wait in the hold queue with nothing to do but listen to prerecorded music or messages, which the calling party may not desire to hear.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to have an improved computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for providing interaction among communication device users while the users wait in a hold queue for an extended period of time.